epronovost Wrote:PS: of course you like them they are values. Here are the three values carried by ISIS and other Islamist fundamentalists groups: determination, courage and ambition. (they look good stated like that, but it doesn't prevent them to be monsters).

Yes, you can take good things and use them for evil purposes.
You can use drugs for trying to save lives. You can use it for destroying lives.
You can use knife to create beautiful wood art, you can use knife to slit throats of innocent people.
LDS believe that Satan "takes" good things and turns them into bad things or he wants them to become bad. He likes to pervert goodness.

English is my second language.
I AM DEPLORABLE AND IRREDEEMABLE
SHE PERSISTED WE RESISTED

Charity.
According to LDS Doctrine charity is pure love of Christ or everlasting love. I receive this pure love of Christ. And when I receive it, it makes me happy. Then I really want to share this love with others so they can also be happy.

LDS Doctrine teaches that mankind exists so they can be happy and have joy. Happiness or fullness of joy is the goal. This is what Gods have - fullness of joy.

Charity or love rejoices in the truth. So, I get to the

Honesty and Integrity.
One of our prophets said this about integrity: "Integrity is a state or quality of being complete, undivided, or unbroken. It is wholeness and unimpaired. It is purity and moral soundness. It is unadulterated genuineness and deep sincerity. It is courage, a human virtue of incalculable value. It is honesty, uprightness, and righteousness. Take these away and there is left but an empty shell. …"

So, integrity in me is not to ask: "what will others think of me and my practices? but what do I think of myself if I do this or fail to do that? is it proper? is it right?"

Will Christ approve it?

Integrity should bring inner peace, sureness of purpose, and security in action. Lack of it brings the reverse: disunity, fear, sorrow, unsureness.5

Hard work
as we say: Gods work and we have to. Atheists in the Soviet Union were teaching: work(labor) turned an ape into a human.

When we work hard we can achieve many great things in our lives and we can bless lives of others. It brings happiness to all.

As LDS we believe that when we work we can develop our talents. It will enrich our life and lives of others.

Charity, integrity and hard work is all about becoming happy and sharing this happiness with others.

P.S. Oh, and I am not a very good historian. I am not a historian at all, as a matter of fact. So, forgive me my imperfect memory.the truth is this: when I was 19 I lived in Soviet Union. We still had this Soviet mentality. Only in 1990 or may be in 1991 (forgive for not being good historian and not having perfect memory) I remember we(students) started to rebel against professors who were teaching us scientific communism. Finally we could tell them everything we thought about Marx, Lenin and stinking socialism. We rejoiced when they got angry at us but there was nothing they could do.

English is my second language.
I AM DEPLORABLE AND IRREDEEMABLE
SHE PERSISTED WE RESISTED

It's unusual to ask those kind of question in an interview and the three value I presented were mostly for the exemple, but I will allow the question and answer you so that it doesn't feel like an interogation (even if its actualy the case).

Curiosity: the standing point of my atheism is methodological naturalism and historical analysis. In both history and natural sciences, the main drive for reasearch is the desire to know more, to explore different reality and our own. It's a quest for knowledge and information in addition to be a pleasent distraction. Curiosity is the spark that start the engin.

Honesty: It's to always seek the truth and represent it for what it is. The truth is nothing more than what can be demonstrated, explained, reproduced and confirmed. It's to admit and present the difference between what you know, what you believe and what you hope for. For many people, the line can be blurry between those three things has personnal desire and habits turn beliefs into foundationnal truth, but for an atheist like me, confusing those three is nothing less than deception.

Ambition: like Albert Camus, I believe that the single greatest strength and weakness of the human mind is our spirit of revolt. This desire we have to fight against our circomstances and limitation to achieve greater goals and better lives even if we all know that this quest is never ending since there will always be room for improvements and chances for tragedies. If curiosity is the spark to activate ourselves, honesty, the path to discover more, ambition is the reason to apply our findings to better our world and sometime make it worst.

Those virtues aren't moral. They are intellectual. They are not a sure way for hapiness or positive social behavior. They are there to produce results and move us foward. They are fundamentally utilitarian.

It seems your three values are deeply rooted in spiritualism. Correct me if I am wrong, but your charity seems to extand only to transmitting your faith and not to more physical and psychological help to people in need.

1) Don't you think that the form of charity you are offering is fundamentaly pointless to those who require physical and psychological help?

In the same vein, your vision of integrity has little to do with what the world may concider of your action, but more a self reflection. To me your definition of integrity has more to do with constance than honesty or integrity. Truth has many shades and honesty requires a lot of self correction and flexibility. Your version seems rigid and more in link with an old virtue we called honor.

2) Don't you think you vision of integrity prevents you from correcting your own weaknesses and failings? Isn't admitting your failing to your god even harder than admitting them to your peers?

3) What would you consider hard work? Does it include intellectual or emotional work like teaching, researching, curing or only physical ones? What would you consider hard? The time involved, the ressources necessary, the difficulty of the task. Do you think someone could be happy without working and perfecting his skills while playing?

(15-12-2015 10:04 AM)Alla Wrote: P.S. Oh, and I am not a very good historian. I am not a historian at all, as a matter of fact. So, forgive me my imperfect memory. the truth is this: when I was 19 I lived in Soviet Union. We still had this Soviet mentality. Only in 1990 or may be in 1991 (forgive for not being good historian and not having perfect memory) I remember we(students) started to rebel against professors who were teaching us scientific communism. Finally we could tell them everything we thought about Marx, Lenin and stinking socialism. We rejoiced when they got angry at us but there was nothing they could do.

epronovost Wrote:It seems your three values are deeply rooted in spiritualism. Correct me if I am wrong, but your charity seems to extand only to transmitting your faith and not to more physical and psychological help to people in need.

Yes, I will correct you. Charity or pure love of Christ is this: serve with compassion those who are in need. So, when I say that I receive love of Christ and then I want to share this love with others I mean this: As Jesus served(loved) others I want to serve(love) others. Jesus Christ had compassion and I have compassion.
What is compassion? Compassion is to feel sorry for someone. But I also like this definition of word compassion: "to suffer with". When I suffer with someone or I already suffered like someone I can understand their pain/suffering better. Then I can serve them better. I will understand better what exactly they need from me.
So, pure love of Christ is all about service - taking care of spiritual and temporal needs of others.

epronovost Wrote:In the same vein, your vision of integrity has little to do with what the world may concider of your action, but more a self reflection. To me your definition of integrity has more to do with constance than honesty or integrity. Truth has many shades and honesty requires a lot of self correction and flexibility. Your version seems rigid and more in link with an old virtue we called honor.

I don't really understand what it means "truth has many shades".

epronovost Wrote:2) Don't you think you vision of integrity prevents you from correcting your own weaknesses and failings?

I may be honest with myself and others and wrong at the same time. But if I am wrong I will have consequences(fruits). By fruits I will know that I was wrong.
I will repent and I will correct my mistakes. But I know that I was honest with myself and others. It is very, very important. It is better to be wrong and fail and learn hard way then not to be honest.

epronovost Wrote:Isn't admitting your failing to your god even harder than admitting them to your peers?

I don't know. But I do know this: I have to be honest with myself and others. I have to tell the truth. Even when it takes courage.

epronovost Wrote:3) What would you consider hard work? Does it include intellectual or emotional work like teaching, researching, curing or only physical ones?

Everything you just listed is work. It helps us to develop our talents, gain more knowledge and skills and bless not only our own lives but lives of others.

epronovost Wrote:What would you consider hard?
The time involved, the ressources necessary, the difficulty of the task.

I consider that hard work is this: do all you can and all you have to do to progress in your life so you can enjoy fruits of your labor. And that others can enjoy fruits of your labor.
Always share your happiness with others. Always share your talents with others and your skills and knowledge.

epronovost Wrote:Do you think someone could be happy without working and perfecting his skills while playing?

I am not sure I understand your question.

English is my second language.
I AM DEPLORABLE AND IRREDEEMABLE
SHE PERSISTED WE RESISTED

What is true can sometime be hard to grasp. The multiple shades of truth represent the different angle of a problem or the various application of that truth. That's what I meant by the shades of truth. To know something, you need a deep and profound knowledge of what surround it and the capacity to detail, explain and demonstrate all elements. Thus it require a lot of effort and capacity for self correction.

If you want me to rephrase my question 3, I would do it like so. If hard work is a way to perfect skill, produce joy and be happy, what about playing. Playing is usually an activity you do for pure pleasure with no productivist mindset, but can allow you to master more skills, produce joy and be happy. Why would you say that hard work is preferable than playing?

(16-12-2015 09:10 PM)epronovost Wrote: What is true can sometime be hard to grasp. The multiple shades of truth represent the different angle of a problem or the various application of that truth. That's what I meant by the shades of truth
To know something, you need a deep and profound knowledge of what surround it and the capacity to detail, explain and demonstrate all elements. Thus it require a lot of effort and capacity for self correction.

Oh, I see.

(16-12-2015 09:10 PM)epronovost Wrote: If you want me to rephrase my question 3, I would do it like so. If hard work is a way to perfect skill, produce joy and be happy, what about playing. Playing is usually an activity you do for pure pleasure with no productivist mindset, but can allow you to master more skills, produce joy and be happy. Why would you say that hard work is preferable than playing?

Are you talking about playing games? or musical instruments?
To have good time is great. Work and fun. We need both. Life is short.

English is my second language.
I AM DEPLORABLE AND IRREDEEMABLE
SHE PERSISTED WE RESISTED